Why Employee’s leave Organization

Every company normally faces one common problem of high employee turnout ratio. People are leaving the company for better pay, better profile or simply for just one reason ” “. This article might just throw some light on the matter……

Early this year, Arun, who is a senior software designer, got an offer from a prestigious international firm to work in its India operations developing specialized software. He was thrilled by the offer. He had heard a lot about the CEO of this company, charismatic man often quoted in the business press for his visionary attitude.

The salary was great. The company had all the right systems in place employee-friendly human resources (HR) policies, a spanking new office, and the very best technology, even a canteen that served superb food. Twice Arun was sent abroad for training. “My learning curve is the sharpest it’s ever been,” he said soon after he joined. “It’s a real high working with such cutting edge technology.” Last week, less than eight months after he joined, Arun walked out of the job.

He has no other offer in hand but he said he couldn’t take it anymore. Nor, apparently, could several other people in his department who have also quit recently. The CEO is distressed about the high employee turnover. He’s distressed about the money he’s spent in training them. He’s distressed because he can’t figure out what happened.

Why did this talented employee leave despite a top salary? Arun quit for the same reason that drives many good people away. The answer lies in one of the largest studies undertaken by the Gallup Organization. The study surveyed over a million employees and 80,000 managers and was published in a book called First Break All the Rules.

It came up with this surprising finding: If you’re losing good people, look to their immediate supervisor. More than any other single reason, he is the reason people stay and thrive in an organization. And he’s the reason why they quit, taking their knowledge, experience and contacts with them. Often, straight to the competition.

“People leave managers not companies,” write the authors Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman. “So much money has been thrown at the challenge of Keeping good people – in the form of better pay, better perks and better training – when, in the end, turnover is mostly manager issue.” If you have a turnover problem, look first to your managers. Are they driving people away?

Beyond a point, an employee’s primary need has less to do with money, and more to do with how he’s treated and how valued he feels. Much of this depends directly on the immediate manager. And yet, bad bosses seem to happen to good people everywhere. A Fortune magazine survey some years ago found that nearly 75 per cent of employees have suffered at the hands of difficult superiors. You can leave one job to find – you guessed it, another wolf in a pin-stripe suit in the next one.

Of all the workplace stressors, a bad boss is possibly the worst, directly impacting the emotional health and productivity of employees.

HR experts say that of all the abuses, employees find public humiliation the most intolerable. The first time, an employee may not leave, but a thought has been planted. The second time that thought gets strengthened. The third time, he starts looking for another job. When people cannot retort openly in anger, they do so by passive aggression. By digging their heels in and slowing down. By doing only what they are told to do and no more. By omitting to give the boss crucial information.

Dev says: “If you work for a jerk, you basically want to get him into trouble. You don’t have your heart and soul in the job.” Different managers can stress out employees in different ways – by being too controlling, too suspicious, too pushy, too critical, but they forget that workers are not fixed assets, they are free agents. When this goes on too long, an employee will quit – often over seemingly trivial issue.

It isn’t the 100th blow that knocks a good man down. It’s the 99 that Went before. And while it’s true that people leave jobs for all kinds of reasons- for better opportunities or for circumstantial reasons, many who leave would have stayed – had it not been for one man constantly telling them, as Arun’s boss did: “You are dispensable. I can find dozens like you.” While it seems like there are plenty of other fish especially in today’s waters, consider for a moment the cost of losing a talented employee.

There’s the cost of finding a replacement. The cost of training the replacement. The cost of not having someone to do the job in the meantime. The loss of clients and contacts the person had with the industry. The Loss of morale in co-workers. The loss of trade secrets this person may now share with others.

Plus, of course, the loss of the company’s reputation. Every person who leaves a corporation then becomes its ambassador, for better or for worse.

We all know of large IT companies that people would love to join and large television companies few want to go near. In both cases, former employees have left to tell their tales. “Any company trying to compete must figure out a way to engage the mind of every employee,” Jack Welch of GE once said. Much of a company’s value lies “between the ears of its employees”. If it’s bleeding talent, it’s bleeding value.

Unfortunately, many senior executives busy traveling the world, signing New deals and developing a vision for the company, have little idea of what May be going on at home. That deep within an organization that otherwise does all the right things, one man could be driving its best people away.

shocked to see only 2 comments.. i m sure each every person who have switched job has this factor in the list to change, if not the only this.

it is not only that people need to stay away from humility and injustice.. they also need recognition with awards and rewards.

world is moving fast, ppl hv access to so much of info abt opps, that they do not want to loose it. in this case only good supervisors, better opps, more fierce chanllenges and compensation to match all the hard and smart work done can save the talent of the companies.

I left my prev job because I did not like the work. And also, my manager was unfair and did not understand the depth of work before she gave it out. Giving unrealistic deadlines and right projects to the wrong people.

Another reason people leave is the unwillingness of older people to change or even to accept a better change.

This hits it right on the head – and sometimes, even if the job improves and the manager is changed, the employee will decide (after working under the bad manager) that his time there is limited, especially if he is shuffled to another manager while the bad manager continues to impact the company instead of being fired/demoted. It may be a year down the line, but that employee is forever carrying the memory of the incompetent/cruel/difficult manager in his head as an indelible association with the company, and he won’t forget it when making future decisions about whether or not to stay!

You said it !!! The manager who is the ‘ogre’ lives at the branch office where I have a desk and computer. This person isn’t even my boss but guess what?! She has become ‘chums’ with my boss and has closed door tete a tetes with her… Both women are incredibly threatened and have created a hostile work environment for all of us. I’m already looking for a different job. Next time, I will screen for a credible and less selfish manager. HR should allow every supervisor to be evaluated by their employees and this eval should greatly impact their viability. Insult to injury is the fact that this “ignorarrogant” (my word!) one has suffered no reprimand, has cost the company tens of thousands of dollars and is in every other way, incredibly ineffective. HR will have to keep filling the spaces and making up for the loss she creates. Everytime someone leaves, we fall behind. This is especially difficult because I am responsible for business development.

I just asked to be terminated, I wanted the manager to do it rather than quit, I didn’t want her to have the satisfaction of yet another employee walking out and she doesn’t take the blame. I never saw my “She Who Must Be Obeyed” manager after the day she hired me. Her doberman assistant manager got the juicey job of training me, in a belittling, negative resinforcement style that I finally identified as a BULLY. She nit picked EVERYTHING I did and if I did too many little wrong things she threatened me with the big bad manager who was gonna fire me, so threats of job loss a lot. It finally got so bad I decide I didn’t care anymore what they thought of me and I was going to turn the table and manage the assitant manager. She cowed super fast and then told major lies about me and said I had a hostile attitude, tattled like a little school girl on the playground. You bet I was hostile. Never doing anything right and THEN being accused of something I never did and felt very strongly about I began to dismiss her when she tried to send me yet another nasty memo about whatever she was accusing me off that day.
Finally came down to being called into the managers office. By the time I was done with that manager I had her cringing in the corner and I was demanding she FIRE me if she didn’t like what I was doing and by the way I have witnesses that KNOW I am innocent. I gave her a command and by GOD she did it! I was kind of amazed. I have never seen anyone short circuit so fast. She reminned me of a little cockroach flailing upside down. I got up and said, “am I DISMISSED?” And she mumbled a weak yes. I had no idea if I was fired or not yet. An hour later I was gone! Yippie, it wasn’t worth the money, it was piddly really and I told the Indian Princess she didn’t even have my respect. I call her Indian Princess because she was won of the natives running a tiny Indian Casino. I too am part Native but she felt she had a right to rule everyone around her because she was part of that tribe.
Wow, at least staniding up for myself kept my dignity and terrified both those women.

1> I also want to add that “employee leaves managers not leaders”. There is an acute shortage of leadership in organizations.
2> There should be a learning culture in the organization. As long as there is learning element in a certain job, employee sticks to it. As learning ceases, employee quits.
2> Other things necessary are growth opportunities, respect, fair treatment, recognition, admiration, rewarding the creativity, for employees to be retained.

Iam about to leave my job as i have an incompetent manager who has no leadership style or any managerial attributes, he is more of a problem shifter than solver..if he had mangerial skills in the first place he would know of the concept for problem solving skills and the collaborative approach for conflict resolution…what a brutal idiot!

Something I didn’t see in the original article or subsequent posts: Pitiful line managers are symptomatic of deeper management problems in the organization. Show me lousy service in a restaurant, and I’ll show you lousy management starting with the owner. Show me napoleonic engineering managers and I’ll show you dysfunctional middle and upper management in the organization. I’ve never seen lousy line managers thrive in their pitiful behavior without some sort of tacit support by upper management. That’s where the deeper problem lies, IMO.

Sometimes, I realize that you are taken for granted if you stick too long with a very nice boss(who knows how to play the trick between two employess) who knows what you are actually like. The boss will create the scene and the two managers will fight-finding faults at each other and repoting to the boss not realizing that it was actually the boss who created it!!!

Well, i agree with Swift that older people are reluctant to accept changes. Many people who are lazy, inefficient and scare choose to stay in a company forever. As time passes, empty vacancy comes along, they got promoted. From there, they started to show all their inefficiency of leading people. Well, there is an article i have read earlier which stated ‘ bad managers got promoted because they did their 1st job well but that does not mean that they are capable to lead other.

So what is the point that we work so hard and show efficiency. It seems like stay there wait for your time to come and show your bossy face. I strongly believe promotion must be based on the employee’s efficiency, skill, fast adaptation to the ever-changing market and a good talent to LEAD. ( I have done it before but ignored by the bosses )

Like my company, seniority comes 1st but not efficiency. People who are older and long year of service gets the promotion but not looking at the job results. Normally these people are those who living in a comfortable zone and scare of getting a new job outside and might not as good as the company now. Therefore we always got a bad superior because they are not born or meant to be a boss, just someone who does not want to leave and just waiting time to promote them. This happen in Asian companies.

I am a sales manager and i have a branch manager.

I have a manager who could not speak/write proper English, typical mentality, 3-4 days temper every week, uses 4 letter word, uses brutal force to move the team but not motivation, bad decision making( choose to give free gift to a normal customer but not a complaining customer ), finger pointing in front of everyone ( public humiliation ) and over egoistic ( want everyone to treat him like king ) and he is always right even when he is wrong.

The best thing is, he has bad learning skill ( ignorant of outside market ). The thing he do daily is to come in and show WHO IS BOSS attitude and temper.

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